Dean of Students Candidate Touts Campus Involvement

“There can’t be one Cornell experience,” Jones said. “We probably would like for there to be, but the truth is, everyone does not experience this institution in the same way. I think we need to pay attention to students’ perceptions and attitudes that are shaped by institutional history and culture.”

Garrett Aims to Streamline Staff Workload

President Elizabeth Garrett addressed Cornell staff for the first time Friday afternoon, highlighting the importance of diversity and streamlining efforts to reduce staff members’ work burdens. Hosted by the Employee Assembly, Garrett’s address emphasized the importance of a cohesive body of staff and a multi-tiered effort to reduce unnecessary paperwork and burdensome processes. She began by thanking staff in the audience, saying, “You are not thanked often enough.”

“Your efforts support excellence in Cornell’s research, teaching and outreach, and you create an environment where faculty, students and staff together thrive,” Garrett said. Garrett emphasized the importance of staff roles across Cornell’s campus in realizing the University’s academic mission. “Whether we care for the campus grounds or maintain advanced research equipment, counsel students or manage payroll or process travel reimbursements, motivate donors or carry out the myriad of other ways and functions in which a research university operates, we are all engaged in the academic mission and the academic enterprise,” Garrett said.

Cayea Testifies, Says Previous Confession of Jones’s ’15 Murder Was ‘False’

Benjamin Cayea took the stand Tuesday in his trial for the murder of Shannon Jones ’15, telling jurors that her death was an accident resulting from a sexual encounter gone wrong. Cayea is on trial on a charge of second degree murder of Jones, who he confessed to strangling in a December interview with law enforcement. However, during Tuesday’s trial Cayea testified that he had lied during the initial interview with police at the sheriff’s office. During his testimonial, Cayea said that almost the entire story he initially told the police — that he “just snapped” and intentionally killed Jones — was false. In the transcript of his initial interview, Cayea told police, “I lost my shit and I killed my girlfriend.” On the stand, Cayea said of that statement, “That’s false.

CORNELL CLOSE-UPS | Patchcoski Trained in Seminary Before Becoming LGBT Director at Cornell

“I did not ever plan to be an LGBT director or to be doing gender and sexuality work,” said Brian Patchcoski, associate dean and director of Cornell’s LGBT Resource Center. As an undergraduate at the University of Scranton, Patchcoski trained to become a Catholic priest. Born into a Roman Catholic family, Patchcoski said he was determined to be a priest. When the seminary he entered after high school closed, he was faced with transferring to a more conservative seminary or leaving the seminary system completely. When he visited the new seminary with his mother, she was not allowed past the front door because “she was a woman,” Patchcoski recounted.

INAUGURATION | Presidential Treats: A Dairy Bar Tradition

(Brittney Chew / Sun News Photography Editor)
Two new ice cream flavors are coming to Cornell Dairy for Homecoming Weekend, in honor of President Elizabeth Garrett’s official inauguration and Touchdown the unofficial mascot. Cornell Dairy hosted a student-voted contest online and on campus this September to choose a name for the new flavor dedicated to Garrett’s inauguration. The contest yielded “24 Garrett Swirl” as the winner, beating out rivals “Garrett’s Chocolate Bar Association” and “Cornelle Chocolate Chunk.”
The flavor will be revealed today at the Cornell Community Picnic taking place on the Ag Quad from noon to 2 p.m., immediately following the 10 a.m. inauguration ceremony. Samples will be available to the public. In addition to 24 Garrett Swirl, Homecoming attendees will be able to sample a new Touchdown-themed flavor on Saturday morning at Teagle Hall, when President Garrett reveals the new Class of 1915 plaza and Touchdown statue.